The long-term future of older electric cars is being threatened by manufacturers' focus on range and charging speed at the expense of repairability, according to vehicle remarketing expert Cox Automotive.
Antonia Stephenson, Cox Automotive's European director of operations for EV battery solutions, told the FT Future of the Car Summit in London, "It's essential that we design batteries with repair in mind, to keep them in the vehicle and then into the energy storage industry beyond that. We focus a lot on range as an industry, and design has moved in the way of less repairable batteries."
Stephenson also flagged that legislation is built more around recycling than repair, reducing the incentive for car manufacturers to build ease of repair into their development. This could have a significant impact on the residual values of electric vehicles.
View Price on AmazonIf manufacturers continue to create electric vehicles that can't be repaired, it will be a real challenge to sustain residual values. Brand reputation is very important, and with so much choice now, people are going to be thinking about repairability in the future.
Stephenson called for car manufacturers to switch to a "repair mindset." She emphasized, "Keeping the battery in the ecosystem for as long as possible is what decarbonization is all about, it's environmentally better, it's financially better and it also creates that repairability and an industry that's going to sustain the second-hand car market as vehicles age."
As technology evolves and batteries fitted to older cars go out of production, the cost of replacement, if repair isn't possible, will make it harder to keep cars on the road.
Source: autoexpress.co.uk
